Facts about Fibonacci

Answer 1

Leonardo Pisano Bigollo (c. 1170 - c. 1250) - known as Fibonacci, and also Leonardo of Pisa, Leonardo Pisano, Leonardo Bonacci, Leonardo Fibonacci - was an Italian mathematician, considered by some "the most talented western mathematician of the Middle Ages."

Fibonacci is best known to the modern world for the spreading of the Hindu-Arabic numeral system in Europe, primarily through the publication in 1202 of his Liber Abaci (Book of Calculation), and for a number sequence named the Fibonacci numbers after him, which he did not discover but used as an example in the Liber Abaci.

Leonardo Fibonacci was born around 1170 to Guglielmo Bonacci, a wealthy Italian merchant. Guglielmo directed a trading post (by some accounts he was the consultant for Pisa) in Bugia, a port east of Algiers in the Almohad dynasty's sultanate in North Africa (now Béjaïa, Algeria). As a young boy, Leonardo traveled with him to help; it was there he learned about the Hindu-Arabic numeral system.

Recognizing that arithmetic with Hindu-Arabic numerals is simpler and more efficient than with Roman numerals, Fibonacci traveled throughout the Mediterranean world to study under the leading Arab mathematicians of the time. Leonardo returned from his travels around 1200. In 1202, at the age of 32, he published what he had learned in Liber Abaci (Book of Abacus or Book of Calculation), and thereby popularized Hindu-Arabic numerals in Europe.

Leonardo became an amicable guest of the Emperor Frederick II, who enjoyed mathematics and science. In 1240 the Republic of Pisa honored Leonardo, referred to as Leonardo Bigollo, by granting him a salary.

Fibonacci died in Pisa, but the date of his death is unknown, with estimates ranging from 1240 to 1250.

In the 19th century, a statue of Fibonacci was constructed and erected in Pisa. Today it is located in the western gallery of the Camposanto, a historical cemetery on the Piazza dei Miracoli.